by John Bude
“Not entirely,” corrected Meredith. “Now be honest, old man. You wouldn’t start searching the launch for an illicit printing-press unless you had definite proof that Latour was a member of a gang. And if neither he nor any member of his crew were caught with the notes on their person—I mean as they came ashore—would you honestly suspect that the counterfeiting was being worked from the Hirondelle? Owned, remember, by the highly respectable Mrs. Hedderwick.”
“No,” admitted Blampignon with a hangdog look. “That is true. Without we catch him coming off the boat with the notes on him, how should we suspect?”
“Precisely. Don’t forget that when we did catch up with Latour it was via Guillevin, the tobacconist, and Jacques Dufil, the hunchback. It was sheer crazy carelessness on Latour’s part to bribe Dufil with forged notes. And even then we shouldn’t have associated the racket with the Hirondelle if we hadn’t had that chance encounter with the launch off Cap Martin on Saturday night. Agreed?”
“Mais oui,” said Blampignon sheepishly. “That is good sense.”
“Well, that’s my first point. Now for the second. Even when my investigations did lead me to the Hirondelle, I found absolutely nothing suspicious about her. Admittedly, when I searched the boat on Monday I wasn’t specifically looking for a printing-press, because I’d no idea then how the trick was being worked. You follow?”
“Oui, oui—parfaitement,” nodded Blampignon.
“But last night, when Strang and I searched the launch again, we boarded her expecting to unearth the press. But even then, if it hadn’t been for a fortunate mishap I guess we’d have chucked our theory overboard and kidded ourselves that the press wasn’t aboard the Hirondelle.”
“And when you did find it?” asked Gibaud eagerly. “Where exactly—?”
Meredith cut in with a malicious twinkle:
“Oh, no—I’m not going to spoon-feed you fellows. When we’re through with this pow-wow we’re driving down to the harbour and I’m going to give you and Blampignon a chance to discover the darn thing for yourselves! But before we do that let’s return to the receiving-end of the set-up—the collecting and disposal of the notes once they’d come off the press. As far as the Sergeant and I have been able to ascertain there are only three men working the racket—four, if we include the elusive ‘Chalky’.”
“And those?” enquired Gibaud.
“Latour, Shenton and Bourmin. Latour, printing; Shenton, collecting; Bourmin, disposing. And of these three, I’ve a very strong suspicion that the Englishman’s the one behind the organization. Now for the details. You recall the Sergeant’s evidence concerning Shenton’s early-morning fishing expeditions?” The two Inspectors nodded. “Well, that was the alibi he employed when picking up the notes. Simple, eh? A bit of fishing, say, off Cap Martin or wherever they’d agreed to put ashore the notes. A quick look around for the empty wine-bottle. Another casual glance around in the vicinity of the marker for a medium-sized boulder bearing five tar stains. Even if there were other anglers out on the rocks it would be perfectly easy for Shenton to slip the boulder unnoticed into his creel.”
Gibaud protested:
“I still think it sounds damnably over-complicated.”
“Not a bit of it. The notes had to be set ashore in some sort of container. And that container had to merge into the surrounding landscape like a chameleon. What better than one more lump of rock amid a million others? Actually there’s more to it than that, but I’ll deal with this in due course. Anyway, we’ve now got irrefutable evidence that this was the way Shenton worked it. Yesterday evening when we drove over to Cap Martin we took with us an empty bottle of Nuits St. George. This we set up on the rock where the Sergeant had spotted the original marker—the one he smashed with that pebble! To allay all suspicion we picked up every piece of broken glass. Later, at the Villa Paloma, I had a private word with Miss Westmacott. I asked her to keep watch from her window to see if Shenton set out early this morning on one of his little angling jaunts. If so, she was to ring me at my hotel.”
“And she did?” asked Blampignon.
“Yes—he left about six-thirty. And if that isn’t conclusive proof, then I’ll grow a beard and like it!” chuckled Meredith. “So much for that. Once the Sergeant had stumbled on the boulder clue the remaining links in our chain of evidence snapped very neatly into place. We drove over to Malloy’s villa at Beaulieu and found just what we were looking for—a five-spot, perfectly natural-looking lump of rock that was used to prop open one of the garage doors.”
“But how did it get there?” demanded Blampignon instantly. “This Bourmin disposes of the notes. He does not collect them. At least that is what you tell us just now.”
“Quite, my dear chap. We asked ourselves the same question. How did Bourmin pick up the notes from Shenton over at Menton? Did Shenton deliver them in person? If so, when and where? It struck us that it wouldn’t be easy for Shenton and Bourmin to arrange a rendezvous. Bourmin never knew when exactly he’d be on duty. The Colonel made that point clear. The chauffeur was often called out at a moment’s notice. Besides it wouldn’t be easy for Shenton, with a pretty full private life, to nip away from the villa just when he pleased.” Meredith turned to Strang. “And then we hit on the explanation, eh, Sergeant?”
“A winner all the way, sir!” exclaimed Strang.
“You see,” went on Meredith, “we found out that every Friday night Bourmin drove the Malloys over to the Villa Paloma for an evening’s bridge. And it struck us at once that this was the link we were looking for. Here was a chance for Bourmin to collect the specie without rousing the slightest suspicion. Nobody, in fact, even suggested that Bourmin knew either Latour or Shenton.”
“And you find out that your theory was right…how?” asked Blampignon.
“From Beaulieu we drove direct to Mrs. Hedderwick’s. In the garage-yard there we found an identical boulder employed in exactly the same way. You see the beautiful simplicity of it all? Bourmin slips the empty boulder into the Rolls—probably under the driving-seat or some other suitable spot. After dropping the Malloys at the front-door, he parks the Rolls in the garage-yard at the rear of the villa. There he substitutes the empty boulder for the one that Shenton has placed ready for him. Doubtless Latour was responsible for conveying the empty containers from the villa to the boat—presumably in the rucksack that, according to Miss Westmacott, he used for carrying his painting gear. As I see it, there was a chain of boulders kept in continuous motion. Villa to boat, boat to shore, shore back to Villa Paloma, Paloma to Valdeblore, Valdeblore back to Paloma and so on and so on.” Meredith paused, pulled out a handkerchief, mopped his brow and turned with a triumphant expression to his French confrères. “Well, gentlemen, that’s our story and we hope you like it. Now before we drive down to the Hirondelle are there any—?”
There was a rap on the door.
“Entrez!” sang out Gibaud.
A constable entered.
“Pour M’sieur Meredith.”
He held out the cablegram which had been sent round post-haste to the Commissariat by the manager of the Hotel Louis.
“Ah, thanks,” nodded Meredith. “I was expecting this.” Adding the moment the constable had closed the door: “A little enquiry I made at the Yard concerning our friend Shenton.” Hastily slitting open the envelope, he scanned the enclosed message and emitted a low whistle. “Well, well—what do you know? Just listen to this, gentlemen—Reference your enquiry stop person in question served six months Wormwood Scrubs 1939 stop theft West-end night-club stop charged under name referred your cable but at time trial suspected to be alias stop this never proved stop.” Meredith glanced round with a self-satisfied smile, slipped the cablegram back into the envelope and thrust it in his pocket. “So my feelings about that young fellow weren’t misplaced. As I suspected, a Bad Hat. I felt sure I’d seen his face before and I probably had…in the Rogues’ Gal
lery at the Yard!” Meredith paused to relight his pipe, then added: “Now before we drive down to the Hirondelle, are there any questions, gentlemen?”
“Mais oui,” nodded Blampignon. “Just one little question. This figure in the cloak—you say Gibaud here suspect that it is a woman. And by the way you say it, mon ami, I think you do not agree, eh?”
“I do not!” said Meredith emphatically. “And for one very good reason. Now that we know for certain that the notes were being run off the press aboard the launch, I’m convinced that Latour’s companion was a man.”
“A man?” asked Blampignon impatiently. “But what man?”
“A man who was indispensable to the working of that press. A man upon whose expert knowledge and technical skill Latour would be forced to rely. The king-pin, in fact, of the whole shady set-up.”
“Sacré nom!” exclaimed Blampignon, with an upward roll of his dark expressive eyes. “‘Chalky’ Cobbett himself!”
“Exactly,” smiled Meredith. “The gentleman I was sent down here to collect.”
II
“Well,” called down Meredith from the quayside, “any luck, m’lads?”
Blampignon stuck a flushed and sheepish face out of the cabin-door and, glancing up at his tormentor, shook his fist.
“One half of an hour and we find nothing—nothing, mon vieux! C’est incroyable. But I have no more patience to continue the search. You have had your little laugh, perhaps?”
“And how!” chuckled Meredith maliciously. He nodded to Strang, who was squatting on a nearby bollard. “O.K. Let’s get aboard and put ’em out of their misery.”
Dropping lightly on to the deck of the launch, Meredith and Strang, followed by the two French Inspectors, passed through into the for’ard cabin. There Meredith flicked on his pocket-torch and opened up a dark, deeply-recessed locker let into the starboard side of the boat beyond the double-tiered berths. Motioning his colleagues forward, Meredith announced with a dramatic flourish of his hand:
“Voilà, messieurs! The answer to the mystery!”
“The fresh-water tank!” exclaimed Gibaud. “But confound it, we lifted the lid and looked inside it. The darn thing’s brimful of water.”
“That’s what we thought,” admitted Meredith. “I even shone my torch inside to make sure. If I hadn’t done so, we’d still be groping, eh, Strang?”
“You mean you see something strange about the tank that awake your suspicion?” asked Blampignon.
Meredith shook his head.
“No—even then I spotted nothing odd about it.”
“Then how the devil…?” began Gibaud, bewildered.
“My torch slipped out of my hand and fell into the water—that’s all.” Meredith groped in his pocket and pulled out a chip of stone that he’d picked up on the quayside. He handed it to Blampignon. “Just drop this in and watch carefully, my dear fellow.”
As Meredith directed the rays of his torch down into the tank, Blampignon dropped the stone into it with a gentle plop. It descended for about eighteen inches and then, as if affected by some incalculable freak of gravity, appeared to remain suspended in the water.
“But, mon Dieu!” exclaimed Blampignon, “it is not natural! What is the explanation?”
“This,” said Meredith curtly.
Reaching forward, whilst Strang kept the lid hinged back as far as it would go, Meredith cautiously gripped the rim of the tank and lifted out the false tank that was cunningly fitted into the top of the receptacle. Beneath it was a deep recess, insulated from the outer sides of the tank by a kind of four-inch water-jacket. Inside this recess was the printing-press!
“Good heavens!” cried Gibaud. “No wonder we didn’t tumble to it. We sounded the tank, of course, to make sure that it wasn’t hollow.”
“Quite,” nodded Meredith. “And you suspected nothing because of this ingenious idea of fitting a second smaller tank inside the first and filling the space between ’em with water. We got caught the same way. We’ve certainly got to hand it to ‘Chalky’, because I’ll wager a week’s wages that he was the blighter who hit on the idea. All he and Latour had to do was to lift the press out of the recess, print off the notes, lift the press back in again and refit this tray of water into the top of the tank. I imagine the base of the tray escaped our attention because the light of the torch was reflected from the surface of the water and acted as a blinder. At any rate, that’s how the trick was worked. And the only outstanding problem we’ve got on our hands is this—where the deuce is ‘Chalky’ Cobbett? Find the answer to that one and we’re all set, I imagine, to pull in the wanted men.”
Chapter XV
The Shuffling Cockney
I
Back once more in Gibaud’s office the little group of officials went into another extended huddle. They still had to decide on the best scheme for the arrest of the wanted men. In Meredith’s opinion it would be fatal to pull in Shenton and Bourmin before they’d discovered the whereabouts of Latour and the elusive “Chalky”. It was certain the couple would get to hear of the arrests, and, the moment they had, they’d melt away like a couple of snowflakes on a griddle. True, Latour had already cleared out of the villa because he suspected the police had learnt something of the gang’s activities—but even Latour had no precise idea of just how much the police had succeeded in finding out. After all, hadn’t he taken the launch out after his flit from the villa? And hadn’t Shenton collected the latest batch of forged notes only that morning? Latour and Cobbett might be on their guard. They might even lie low for a period. But it was obvious that, at present, they’d no intention of abandoning their very profitable enterprise. As for Bourmin and Shenton, they were still blissfully ignorant of the fact that they’d come under suspicion. They had absolutely no reason to suspect that they’d been linked up either with the racket or with each other.
“So what is it you have to suggest, mon ami?” asked Blampignon, after an exhaustive discussion of this somewhat ticklish problem.
“Well, it’s not for me to say, my dear chap. The actual arrests are your pidgin. But weighing up the pros and cons I’m against any immediate action. Risky, I admit. If we postpone the arrests of Bourmin and Shenton, say, for forty-eight hours, then we stand a chance, in the interim, of laying our hands on Latour and Cobbett. On the other hand if Bourmin and Shenton do happen to find out that we’ve got a line on ’em, then this very delay would enable them to get cracking while the going’s still good. There’s always a chance that they might pick up information about our recent investigations in the district—our interest in the Hirondelle, for example. It boils down to this. If we delay a couple of days we stand a chance of pulling in all four of ’em—or, if our luck’s out, of allowing the whole boiling to slip through our fingers. That’s our problem in a nutshell. But I must leave the final decision to you and Gibaud.”
“Eh bien,” nodded Blampignon, still obviously vacillating. “What is your idea about this, Gibaud?”
Gibaud shrugged.
“Two birds in the hand are worth four in the bush,” he declared with an oracular air. “On the other hand…I’m pretty sure Meredith’s got the right idea. Yes—take it all round, I’m for delaying the arrests.”
“Bon!” exclaimed Blampignon, his good-natured face suddenly wreathed in smiles. “Then I will agree to it. We will allow ourselves forty-eight hours in which to find Latour and Cobbett. It is what you call a long shot, eh? But, tiens! That is how we will decide.”
Unrealized by the little group in Gibaud’s office, it was a decision that was to bear in its train many unexpected and unhappy consequences.
II
Before separating for lunch the Inspectors decided on the line of their future investigation. Gibaud made himself responsible for the day and night watch that was to be kept on L’Hirondelle. He’d already drawn up a duty roster and detailed a couple of plain-clothes me
n from the local force to carry out the job. The extended search for Latour and Cobbett was to be undertaken by Gibaud himself, in concert with Meredith and Strang. They arranged to meet at the Commissariat at two o’clock.
After a hasty lunch, therefore, the Englishmen found themselves once again in Gibaud’s office deep in discussion.
“I don’t know how you feel about it,” said Meredith, “but in my opinion, we ought to make a house-to-house comb-out along the waterfront. At least, for a start. After all, if ‘Chalky’s’ been making frequent trips aboard the launch, it’s pretty well certain that he must have his hide-out in the vicinity of the harbour. Far easier and far less risky if he was more or less on the spot. Agreed?”
Gibaud nodded.
“And our Number One Priority, I imagine, is the Maison Turini. We know Latour’s been making contact there with old Madame Grignot, the concierge. And since birds of a feather—”
“Exactly,” cut in Meredith. “There’s a fair chance that ‘Chalky’s’ been very successfully tucked away in one of the apartments—either by himself or with some unsuspecting family in the tenement. Well, there’s our starting-point, my dear chap. If we draw a blank there, we’ll damn well search every likely house and café along the quayside.”
A swift run in the car brought them to the Quai de Bonaparte, and a few minutes later, after a further exhaustive cross-examination of Madame Grignot, their search of the building was under way. It was a long and arduous task demanding infinite tact and patience. The onus of the work naturally fell on Gibaud since all the various interrogations had to be carried on in French—but Meredith and Strang were by no means idle. Not only was it necessary to cross-question the inmates of the various apartments, but a thorough search of every likely hiding-place was equally essential. After all, Latour might have bribed some occupant to keep his or her mouth shut about the presence of the wanted man, and their knock on the door might have sent the fellow scuttling into some prearranged place of concealment.
